An Explorational Unit on Color Theory
Can you mix paint to make a color that matches a given swatch? How closely can you match it? This activity yields a product that looks simple, yet the task involves a complex thinking process for color theory learners.
While I was studying Art Ed at Brooklyn College, I learned how this activity develops deductive skills and how it is most developmentally appropriate for early adolescence. Deductive thinking tends to be a tween's cognitive strategy of choice. Yet I've had students from third grade and up work on this task and be completely engaged with it. They deduce when they start with a conclusion (in this case, the color swatch that their final product should match), and break that conclusion down into premises or parts. By starting with the outcome, this activity sets up circumstances so that students reach understandings, on their own, about mixing colors. It also tends to be a soothing task because it asks the artist to stretch cognitive muscles by using both physical and conceptual thinking. What judgments and choices might students make as they paint?
Students are also building on prior experiences with paint when they work on the color detective project. After learning that paint can be spread, mixed, and thinned, they can gain insight on how actions in paint cause certain effects. This activity fosters a dialog between idea and material; we learn about paint as we mix it to give shape to the perception of a color.
For the littles, I provide a similar yet more simple and open-ended prompt: "What new colors will you make?" They mix then paint patches of colors onto their paper in a range of colors. Dialogue during this activity usually involves just asking the differences between colors, and the most talkative learners really like to get into how much of each color they used to get there. "It looks like you painted two different shades of orange; how are they different from each other? What would you call them?" The kids especially love making up names for colors like "Tiger Orange" and "Takis Fuego Orange" (adorable). I wish I took pictures of these! The kids usually walk out with these exploration paintings on the same day. Before this task, I may have a group of students work on a foundational color wheel or likewise activity with the goal of mixing primaries to make secondaries.
Demo Video
This was the very first demo video I ever made! It was my first year of teaching, and the day before this lesson I kept going over and over logistics in my head, still worrying about how I could get it all done in one class session. So I chose to take materials home and make a demo video that night. Since then I use videos all the time -- I have zero minutes in between classes, so videos are a ginormous time-saver for swapping out materials while the kids see the demo. Being so new to teaching at the time, I worried whether it was ok to stay late in my classroom to work on a video like this (HA! Do it all the time now). So, in my tiny apartment, with some pretty rough lighting, I put something together. Like usual when I make videos, I felt like I didn't know what I was doing and it turned out way long!
Autumn Colors and Exploring Shades of Brown
One time, I had kindergarteners and first graders mix the complementary colors together to see what different shades of brown they might get. That was a VERY messy day! At the beginning of class we observed autumn leaves, and they could choose another autumn leaf color instead of brown, if they wanted.
